Ikiru | 生きる | Doomed (1952)

Synopsis

Kanji Watanabe is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing.

He learns he is dying of cancer and wants to find some meaning in his life. He finds himself unable to talk with his family, and spends a night on the town with a novelist, but that leaves him unfulfilled.

He next spends time with a young woman from his office, but finally decides he can make a difference through his job.



After Watanabe's death, co-workers at his funeral discuss his behavior over the last several months and debate why he suddenly became assertive in his job to promote a city park, and resolve to be more like Watanabe. -- IMDb

Cast: Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki, Makoto Kobori, Kumeko Urabe, Yoshie Minami, Miki Odagiri, Kamatari Fujiwara, Minosuke Yamada, Haruo Tanaka, Bokuzen Hidari, Shinichi Himori, Nobuo Nakamura, Kazuo Abe, Masao Shimizu, Ko Kimura, Atsushi Watanabe, Yûnosuke Itô, Yatsuko Tanami, Fuyuki Murakami, Seiji Miyaguchi, Daisuke Kato, Ichiro Chiba, Kin Sugai, Eiko Miyoshi, Fumiko Homma

Read about this film

Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Color: Black and White
Runtime: 140 min.